The Taste of Amber
by VR Trakowski
Summary: Caine's good at finding people. WARNING: blood, original character death


**Most of the characters and situations in this story belong to the Wachowskis, Dune Entertainment, Village Roadshow Pictures, and other entities, and I do not have permission to borrow them. All others belong to me, and if you want to play with them, you have to ask me first. No infringement is intended in any way, and this story is not for profit. Any errors are mine, all mine, no you can't have any. The opinions expressed by characters in this story may or may not be those of the author.**

 **Written for the first Tumblr _Jupiter Ascending_ fic challenge-I've included the challenge words _tale, jewel_ , and _hunt,_ and bonus words _delicacy, inheritance,_ and _symphony._ And completely failed to include my own suggested word. :P Many thanks to Cincoflex for looking this over! **

**WARNING: blood, original character death**

* * *

It's simple, this time.

Wise is used to it by now - proud of it, even. He might be a runt, a reject, a too-small packless misbred, but he has one talent, and it makes him valuable.

The missions are irregular; most of the time he's assigned to Commander Apini's squadron, one soldier among many, part of the elite. But every so often orders come down from on high, and Wise is broken out of his unit to go solo.

To hunt.

The orders are clear; find, and kill. It's almost never _find and retrieve_ ; there are more ordinary teams for that. No, when Command wants to be sure of the target, they call up Wise. Because he doesn't stop. He doesn't falter.

He doesn't fail.

The packet has the usual data of name, image, geneprint; someone had the foresight to collect a personal item, too, an armband of braided metal that's probably worth more than Wise cost to create. He doesn't care. He lifts it to his nose and takes in the scent, unwinding it easily from the harsher smell of gold, and lids his eyes.

 _There_.

He never can explain it, the way he can pick out one note in a symphony of odors, or how he can follow it even where there is no atmosphere to sustain it. But most of the time no one asks anyway. Nobody cares how the Splice does what he does, so long as he does it.

This assignment is clearly a favor from the upper brass to someone private, because the death of the third heir of a minor noble house divided by an inheritance squabble is hardly Legion business. Wise doesn't care. It doesn't pay to question orders, and anyway, he's got no use for nobility in general. No soldier does.

With orders come equipment; more specifically, a ship. Legionnaires don't own vehicles, but they can fly just about anything that has lift, and Wise settles into the tiny cockpit with a grunt of satisfaction. It's cramped, but he doesn't mind. It's freedom to fly, and that's what counts.

All Skyjackers love to fly, any way they can.

To some, the Gyre is a glorious thing, a sparkling wheel of stars, but to Wise it's more a network of points - here a planet, there a station, generate a portal to go between. He finds beauty on a smaller scale, and when the ship emerges at his destination he takes a moment to admire the planet that gleams like a jewel before him, all white and gold and streaks of black.

It's a cosmopolitan world, busy with cities that spring out of its deserts in clumps and clusters, and Wise lands on a commercial field and pays a fee to park the ship, shrugging on a jacket to cover his wings and the insignia on his arm. Fiction would have him stash the ship in the wild and sneak into the city, but this is no tale. The best way to pass unnoticed is to act like everyone else.

Wise takes a small room in one of the lower-end hostels that cater to Splices - it's always smart to have a base of operations - and gets himself a meal. Legion rations are bland, so he tries the local delicacy of some braised fowl, and enjoys it well enough.

And when it's dark, he walks out and into the streets to quarter for his prey.

It's not hard to find the woman; she made a good effort to hide her trail, but he's not an expert for nothing. Wise's senses told him which planet to look on, but Legion resources told him which city - no point in doing it all himself if the data's there to access. Now he draws in a long breath and lets that thread of scent lead him on.

He finds her in the audience at a musical performance. Wise traces her to the building and has to sneak in through the back - it's not a venue that welcomes Splices. He stuns a stagehand and takes their coverall, and it's as good as an invisibility shield.

Yes, there she is, seated near the orchestra, her rank showing in the fresh purity of her skin, someone who can afford ReCell whenever she pleases. He could kill her with one shot as she sits there, gems gleaming at her ears and throat, but not without raising a fuss - and those aren't his orders, anyway.

So Wise fades back into the shadows, and waits.

When the performance is over, his target leaves with a group of friends, joining them in their groundcar. Wise takes to the air above them on silent wings; it's a simple matter to follow the vehicle as it winds through the city.

Her friends drop her off at a class of hotel so far above Wise's that they scarcely exist in the same universe. He watches as she enters, her stride a little fast; a faint whiff of sour unease reaches him above, and he nods to himself. Some primal part of her senses that she's being watched.

The fastness of the hotel, with all its high-end security, might present difficulties to more ordinary hunters, but Wise has dealt with such before. _Difficult_ is someone who knows straight out he's coming, and who surround themselves with guards or flee for the furthest and dimmest corners of the Gyre. Hovering outside her room two hours from dawn, Wise wonders why the noblewoman's enemies requested _him_ ; the job could probably have been handled by an assassin for hire, or a team, not the Legion's premiere tracker.

But orders are orders, and it's not his place to ask.

All the security is focused on the entry points of the room - no proof against the iriser Wise places against the wall itself. But then, it's Legion tech, and closely guarded; there are doubtless a few on the black market, but not enough to make them a common threat.

He slips in through the opening, folding his wings and shutting off his boots, and his steps make no sound on the thick carpet. His gun is already in his hand, in case his target sleeps lightly, but no one stirs as he makes his way through the darkened suite.

She's asleep in the bed, limbs disposed neatly under a light sheet, and some part of Wise wishes he could just kill her and have done with it; one knife-thrust into the base of her skull and she would be dead without ever waking.

But his orders say different, so he holsters his gun and leans down to prod her shoulder.

She gasps, her eyes fly open though he can be no more than a silhouette to her in the dark, she opens her mouth to scream as his hand grabs her hair - and his knife cuts the noise with one clean slice, and Wise steps back to avoid the spray of blood.

He hates the sadists who specify that the target has to see him coming, hates that they _want_ the terror and pain even if they never observe it. But it's within the letter of his orders to keep that terror as brief as possible. His target has perhaps two or three seconds of consciousness between sleep and death, and that's all he can provide.

He waits until her heartbeat stutters to a stop, until the blood stops dribbling, until he can feel the new emptiness of the room, whatever the thing pure humans call a _soul_ gone from the world forever. Then Wise calls up the lights and captures a few images, focusing on the blood and the open eyes, for proof. It's a distasteful task, but better they ask for pictures than parts. Bringing back a head in a box is always messy.

And then he leaves, opening the wall to step out into the aging night and let the cool air wash away the stink of death. He doesn't bother going down to the ground, or back to the hostel; the mission is complete, or will be as soon as he sends the images and reports in. Smarter to be off the planet as soon as possible; technically he can't be prosecuted for murder if he somehow gets caught, but extradition can take weeks and it's frowned upon by his superiors.

The little ship is waiting for him patiently, and Wise waves to the battered android holding down the dawn shift, flashing his parking pass as he walks by. As he straps in, he lets the satisfaction well up inside him. He completed his mission perfectly, with no errors and no hitches. His service is still valuable.

 _He_ is still valuable.

Wise lifts the ship out of the atmosphere, watching the first rays of the planet's star lighten the air below him. It's beautiful, this gem of a world; he'll probably never see it again, but it's beautiful.

He sets a portal, and leaves it behind.


End file.
